ESPN Makes Up New QB Stat

[sportscurmudgeon]

Originally Posted by JoeRedskin

I would love to know how some of the great QB's of the past came out in this rating (Unitas, Jurgenson, Graham, Marino, Montana, etc.) but I imagine that would be impossible to determine given its a play by play analysis.

And that may be another huge benefit of a new rating scale.

Any ranking system - - such as the current one - - that can be applied to historically great QBs to compare them with current QBs is misleading because the game and the rules have changed.

Forget the numbers and just use your eyes:

Who is the better QB, Tony Romo or John Elway? Your eyes say it is Elway; the current rating system says it is not even close and Romo is far better. Romo ranks 4th all-time and Elway ranks 54th all time.

Who is the better QB, Duante Culpepper or Dan Marino? The rating system has Culpepper slightly ahead of Marino.

Who is the better QB, Mark Rypien or John Unitas? I think you have figured out what the current rating system says here...

Oh, by the way, the current rating system says that Jason Campbell and Sonny Jurgensen have identical career ratings to date (82.6) and both of them are inferior to Donovan McNabb with a rating of 85.7.

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by sportscurmudgeon

And that may be another huge benefit of a new rating scale.

Any ranking system - - such as the current one - - that can be applied to historically great QBs to compare them with current QBs is misleading because the game and the rules have changed.

Forget the numbers and just use your eyes:

Who is the better QB, Tony Romo or John Elway? Your eyes say it is Elway; the current rating system says it is not even close and Romo is far better. Romo ranks 4th all-time and Elway ranks 54th all time.

Who is the better QB, Duante Culpepper or Dan Marino? The rating system has Culpepper slightly ahead of Marino.

Who is the better QB, Mark Rypien or John Unitas? I think you have figured out what the current rating system says here...

Oh, by the way, the current rating system says that Jason Campbell and Sonny Jurgensen have identical career ratings to date (82.6) and both of them are inferior to Donovan McNabb with a rating of 85.7.

Good points about QB rating SC, though I'd point out that using quarterback rating or something else that adjusts for era, Romo's career to age thirty blows Elway's career to that date out of the water.

The argument for Elway up until the Shanahan era was that he WAS his offense, and that statistically, he's underrated simply because he had little help. But my eyes tell me that you can't separate the way Elway played in the 80's from the way Romo plays now. The numbers just say that Romo has been far more successful at it.

But yeah, QB ratings were never designed to compare players in the seventies to guys who play today.